


I'm Going to Make this Place Your Home

by Susana Rosa (SusanaR)



Series: Desperate Hours Alternative Universe (DH AU) D version [36]
Category: Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/F, Family, Family Secrets, Friendship/Love, Gen, Homecoming, Homesickness, Love, Yuletide, home for the holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 12:00:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/609606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanaR/pseuds/Susana%20Rosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is, essentially, a series of ficlets about people, from different places and time periods, realizing that they're not alone at Yule.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Going to Make this Place Your Home

**Author's Note:**

> Quote 1: "It is in the shelter of one another that the people live." - Irish proverb 
> 
> Quote 2: 
> 
> "Settle down, it'll all be clear  
> Don't pay no mind to the demons  
> They fill you with fear  
> The trouble it might drag you down  
> If you get lost, you can always be found
> 
> Just know you're not alone  
> Cause I'm going to make this place your home" 
> 
> \- Song written by GREG HOLDEN and ANDREW PEARSON, and sung by Phillip Phillips

1\. Warm Heart, Warm Hands 

A/N: Set in Yuletide, Emyn Arnen in Ithilien, T.A. Year 3020. 

The cold, fresh wind blew in through the open door. It brought with it the scent of pine and wildness. The smells of Emyn Arnen in Ithilien, so different from the heavy, sweet, earthy winds of Rohan. For a moment Eowyn's heart clenched, and she bent over her leather-working in a paroxysm of longing for her homeland. 

"Eowyn, Meleth?" Interrupted Faramir's concerned baritone, rich like polished wood and soft like a hug. 

She didn't want to turn to him. But how could she not, when he used that tone of voice? Eowyn thought that Faramir's face and gentle ways should be registered as interpersonal weapons. 

Clasped in her husband's strong, warm arms, she confessed how alone she felt, how out of place, on this her first Yule away from Edoras and Rohan. 

"Ay, my poor Eowyn." Faramir murmured reassuringly against her hair. "And this only the second year to pass since your uncle fell." 

She clutched him more tightly, and laid her silver head against his firm chest, before nodding. His arms encircled her all the more closely in answer. 

"You are never alone, my beloved lady." Faramir promised her, his lips then claiming her own. In the hour that followed he made her body sigh and her heart sing, reminding her with touch and affection of why she had chosen him and everything that came along with him. Including this strange foreign place, with its untamed forest beauty, swift, sparkling rivers, and hidden dangers. 

He'd also made her promise to go to him, when the homesickness troubled her. Eowyn had no defenses against her beloved's brave, tenacious heart. 

At dinner that evening in the hall of their newly-constructed manor house, Eowyn found the heart to smile truly, and to laugh with real cheer. Her lord sat beside her, and his heart was hers. To remember that, all she had to do was forget, for a moment, the tingling sensation left behind by his hand on her bottom, when they spoke of her attempts to keep her sorrows close. Then she would squirm, because although the rosy blush currently adorning her hindquarters was not enough to pain her, she still felt it. It was as tangible as his hand in hers, as they rose to greet the new year. 

 

2\. Sharing a Fire 

A/N: Set in the final years before the Ring War, any Yule before 3017. 

Lieutenant Dervorin took another dose of stimulant-laced-with-concentration-enhancer, and sat down to wait out the night. The young Ithilien Ranger, a nephew of the Lord of the Ringlo Vale, was far from home this Yuletide, at an oasis in furthest Harad. The stars hung strange in the sky, and though his fire burned brightly Dervorin felt quite alone. And frightened. If these bandit lords did not continue to believe him an unethical merchant, then he might die tonight. Or during any hour in the next few weeks. Dervorin was only glad that Captain-General Boromir's orders had kept his own Captain (and good friend), Lord Faramir, too busy to join him on this less than pleasant trip. 

"My Devyango." A familiar, sultry voice called out. "What are you doing all alone by your fire this night?" It was Sayyida bint Esmail, called the Merchant's Friend. Lovely as a rose, deadly as a knife, and powerful as a windstorm. Dervorin's friend, and sometimes-lover. The only woman, the only person, whom he'd ever truly loved enough to want as his own for all his life. 

Sayyida's dark brown eyes took in the flask in Dervorin's hand. "Tsk, my Dev. That is no good companion for this dark, long night. Better we should have wine."   
She sat down beside him as gracefully and elegantly as if they both sat at the Hall of Kings in Minas Tirith. Instead, it was a sandy fire pit in the desert, and Dervorin hadn't even invited her. 

"I need to stay sharp, Saya." Dervorin's unaccustomed firm determination took Sayyida aback, but only for half a moment. She knew this side of him as well, and nothing threw her for long. 

"I stay with you." She replied, pulling the flagon of medicinal drug out of his hands and demurely downing a careful mouthful herself. 

She grinned at him like a minx while he stared at her. "My Devyango," she purred, "Don't you know what two people who have this level of concentration and alertness can do to one another?" 

Dervorin laughed, and met her in a kiss. No one would think that a man kissing a beautiful woman was in fact a Gondorian spy, so he was safe on that account. And making love to a woman he loved was a good way to spend Yule, even if she only loved him as a friend. 

 

3\. Friends and Neighbors 

A/N: Set in Ithilien-en-Edhil, the settlement of the Greenwood elves in Ithilien. Set in approximately year 3021. 

Strands of a song floated through the light snow falling on the newly-built elven dwellings. 

"Here we come a-wandering among the leaves so green." Legolas heard, and knew who it must be. A golden baritone and a silver soprano. A strong tenor and a deep, smooth bass. A mellow alto and two piping, high, flute-like lilts. 

He took off through the trees, his cousins and guards Televegil and Baeraeriel falling silently into place behind him. 

"What in the name of all of the Valar are you DOING here?" Legolas demanded of his human sworn-brother, breathless partly from his run, but mostly out of astonishment. 

Faramir grinned, "We - Eowyn and I- couldn't let you spend your first Yuletide in Ithilien alone. Lord Celeborn agreed, and Lord Orophin followed along, for whatever good he will be." Faramir said with a jesting look towards Orophin. Mostly jesting, at least. Legolas wondered what his cousin by adoption might have done, to have incurred Faramir's annoyance. 

Orophin's delicate pale-blond wife Eilunwen laughed and scolded her husband teasingly for whatever it had been, as their young twin daughters climbed out of the sleigh and danced around Legolas. The heart-felt well-wishes and hugs of little Lisi and Gala, mixed in with wistful inquiries about presents from their Greenwood kin, took Legolas entirely out of the homesick loneliness which had been tormenting him. 

He met Faramir's gray eyes over the shining blond heads of the two little ellith, and he knew that this was exactly what the Steward of Gondor had intended. 

 

4\. At the Closing of the Year 

Gandalf the Gray stared pensively out the window of Gerontius Took's sprawling hobbit hole. Sleet lashed the glass panes, fairly well putting paid to the Istar's plans to leave that evening. He enjoyed spending time with the hobbits, delighted in their joie de vivre in simple, wholesome things, and the loving way they raised their many children. But he still felt alone, on this day when he would have once - and should still - be celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next with his own fellows. With the Maiar and the Valar and all of those who had been there when the world was sung into existence, or who knew, at least, what that meant. There he would be able to use his powers to celebrate this auspicious day, instead of hiding them and limiting them in the guise of an old wizard. 

Gerontius' fire blazed as his eldest daughter played the fiddle, and the hobbits danced and sang, while Gandalf sat alone, hoping for a brighter year. Tomorrow he would be on his way to meet the Elrondionnath and the latest heir of Isildur. Together, they would try to hold the tide of orcs and blight back for yet another year, against odds which would in the end overwhelm them. Elrond had lost one son already, and Elros's line had sacrificed hundreds, even thousands. Gandalf was proud to have taken on the hopeless task of helping them, but sometimes...sometimes he wished that he he had just stayed in the West. There was no one like him in all of Middle Earth, no one who could understand the joys as well as the burdens which this night brought. 

The delicious smell of chocolate and cinnamon woke the wizard from his reverie. Before him stood dark-haired Belladonna, the oldest of the Old Took's three daughters. In her hands she cupped a mug of hot chocolate with something stronger mixed in, and her soulful dark eyes shone with a surprising amount of sympathy. 

"Thank you, my dear." Gandalf said as he accepted the beverage, touched by the young girl's thoughtfulness. 

"May I sit with you, Gandalf?" Asked the slender, tall hobbit lass. 

Gandalf made room on the window seat. Belladonna perched beside him, staring out at the storm. The Took's youngest daughter was at that strange stage in a hobbit's life where she was neither child still, nor quite woman yet. In many adolescents, it made them awkward and moody. Belladonna had a little of that, but mostly she seemed...fey. Looking at Belladonna, Gandalf could understand why other hobbits murmured that there was some elvish bloods in the Tooks. The rumor was highly unlikely to be true, in Gandalf's opinion. But few things were impossible, although surely Elrond at the least would have heard of it. Or perhaps not. The High King's former Herald had many duties, and they weighed heavily upon him. 

"I love it here." Belladonna remarked softly, "The rain and the wind. The chill winter and the hopeful thaw of spring. The warm sweet summers, and the spice and cheer of the haying. I love it all, but sometimes....sometimes I feel as if I do not belong." 

"Why-ever would you say that, child?" Gandalf asked, regarding the girl curiously. 

"Because sometimes, I look out at the storm and I wish to feel the wind and the rain and fly away. Sometimes, my feet long to fly themselves, down all the paths of the shire and out into the wide world, over mountain and moor and even over the ocean. Sometimes, I ache to do more than plant and harvest and make a home. And then I blink, and I am happy again. But still, I know what it feels like to not quite fit in." She explained with quiet dignity. "And I didn't want you to feel alone." 

Gandalf smiled at her, surprised by her insight and touched by her confession. For a hobbit, a feeling of 'not quite fitting in' was a secret to be kept quite close, 'lest it result in scandal. Although the Tooks always had been odd, and had perhaps a bit more freedom in that regard. 

Belladonna pulled her knees up to her chin, and regarded him impishly. "Shall I tell you a story?" 

"I should like that very much, Miss Took." 

"Once upon a time, a very long time ago," Belladonna began in her sweet, soft alto, "Someone else found sanctuary in the warm home of a Took. It was on a cold winter eve, the longest night of the year. In the year which had just passed, hope had been sparse and the frost had been very fierce. 

It is said, amongst my family, that the stranger left something here, 'ere he departed the following morn. A new-made Took widow, her husband frozen to death a week prior in a blizzard, found herself with child as the seasons turned. The babe was born late, weeks late, and uncommonly tall and fair. Many whispered nasty rumors about the pretty young lass, but not her close kin. Tooks take care of their own. 

The lass grew into a fine hobbit with a green thumb like none ever before seen. Her vegetables and fruits grew larger and sweeter, her flowers more fragrant, and her grains taller and thicker. Any who planted a seed from her garden reaped a richer harvest from that day ever forward. The shire sang as it never had before, and the laughter and the joy of the bold, bright Took girl lived on, although she herself passed, albeit after an uncommonly long life." 

Gandalf considered the story, and Belladonna. The "stranger" didn't sound like an elf; he sounded almost like a Maia. Like one of Gandalf's own kind. And the babe didn't sound like any normal half-elf. Gandalf had known Earendil well, and the lass in Belladonna's story sounded more like Elwing, or Elrond. Maiar blood seemed to breed true, generation to generation. Maybe Gandalf was not so alone as he had thought. 

"Will you tell me a story?" Belladonna begged sweetly, all little girl again, no longer creature of fey wisdom. 

"Of course." Gandalf answered, beginning to spin a tale of a mariner sailing through a sea of stars, even as he considered the hobbits, and what it might mean, to find hope in unexpected places.

**Author's Note:**

> End Note: 
> 
> I may write a Part II later, I have little bits of it written. Please let me know if you liked this, and if you'd be interested in reading a few more of these little short ficlets. I have thoughts and some notes for a ficlet with Glorfindel celebrating Yule the first year he is back in Middle Earth, around 1600 S.A., probably with Elrond and possibly also Erestor, Cirdan, and Gil-Galad. I also have some ideas for the first Yule which Legolas/Elrond/Thranduil spends in the west, and some about Faramir's daughters in my AU, who all make alliance marriages and live far from home. I'm open to other ideas as well, if you'd like to make a request.


End file.
